Julie Alone

by Vaughan

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For those who have not read the first five episodes of my
story:

My name is Julie. I am a 5'7" blond, with a good figure,
aged 22. I have just become an assistant of the magician James.
James has another assistant, Mary, a 5'7" black girl, who is
a bit older than me. Mary and me have been victim to several of
James' illusions and enjoyed them, after the initial shock of
some of the predicaments.

My new job seemed to be going well. Audition on Wednesday,
practice Thursday, Friday, and all the following week. The show
on the Friday I did alone because Mary broke her arm. The show
was a success even with only one assistant.

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After a weekend off I arrived at James' warehouse workshop at
about eight. I had driven in my new car, which my father had
promised he would get me when I became a qualified driver. The
warehouse was all shut up. I let myself in via the office door,
which I had a key for. I found a note saying that I could take
the morning off or review video-tapes of James' past magical
triumphs. I made my way through the warehouse and open the
shutters and drive into the space where the van was normally
parked. I had brought my car in because I did not want it
vandalized on my first day out with it. I drew down the shutters.
I did not want to take the morning off as I was ready for some
magical action and while I would rather have been doing it,
watching it would be better than nothing. I had an idea, perhaps
I could find the straps and blades that divided me into eighteen
during my audition, then I could watch the videos and do some
magic to myself at the same time. I had been doing the exercises
that Mary had recommended and felt that my fingers and hands were
now strong enough to walk on finger tips to perform the
re-assembly and I knew from the note that they would be back soon
after lunch, so even if my hands did not prove strong enough,
they would be back to put me together.

I dug around among the heaps of stuff and tried to find the
box of straps and blades.

The first thing of interest I turned up was a wardrobe case of
strange looking clothes. I thought, 'I have not seen these
before I wonder how they would look on me'. I pulled the case
out on its casters and went into the office where it was warmer.
I inspected the case's contents and found that each costume had a
label but they did not mean much to me. I then went to get a
mirror to see what I looked like in the clothes.

The first item I found was labeled "see-through
dress", but was a pale blue cotton dress with a number of
patches held in place by Velcro making it a bit stiff. I stripped
off and wriggled into the dress. I posed in front of the mirror.
I looked good in it, but the patches made it a bit uncomfortable.
I pulled at the patch the covered the middle of my belly, which
came away. I saw something that surprised me, visible through the
hole was not my belly but the inside of the back of the dress. I
pulled the patch off the back of the dress and I could see the
area of the office behind me through the hole in my belly. I
reached down and felt the gap and I could feel my belly was
there, but invisible. I pulled the four velcroed panels from the
skirt of the dress and was unsurprised but amazed to not be able
to see my thighs or hips, but the office behind me was as clear
as day. I grabbed and raised the hem of the skirt and saw my
thighs when below the hem were visible. I enthusiastically ripped
the upper patches from the body of the dress and was glad to see
I was not visible. I danced around the office for a while
invisible from neck to knee. Once I was tired of that I dragged
the dress off and dropped it on a chair.

I went back to the wardrobe trunk to see what else I could
find.

The next item was labeled "slimming dress". While I
have a good figure I thought I would give this one a try. I
looked like a mid-European national costume with its very wide
skirt, panniers, short puff sleeves and a lace-up front. I
unlaced the front and slipped into the dress. I was not really
tight but it fitted snugly in all the right places, even not
laced-up it looked flattering. With some difficulty I re-threaded
the lacings into the loops either side of the front panel which
went up to the neck. I took a look in the mirror and thought I
already look thinner, what would happen if I tightened the
lacings. I started tightening the lacings from just above the
wide skirt and worked my way up I got to my bosom I began to feel
a bit strange, it was a feeling like you get when you are rubbing
hard skin on your foot with pumice, the gentle rubbing comes
through but the rough scraping does not. I checked in the mirror
to see what was happening. Imagine my shock when I noticed that
my body below my breasts tapered to a point that touched the
center of the wide skirt. My waist size had been reduced to zero.
I did not find the idea horrifying or the sensation unpleasant so
I continued to laced up the dress right to the top. When I had
finished my torso was a stick with my arms sticking out of the
top with my head perched between the two puff sleeves.

After checking my ultra thin self out for a minute or so. I
started to unlace the dress again. When I undid the bodice I
found that my body was still a stick. Once I had struggled out of
the skirt, I stood in front of the mirror and saw my legs up to
waist were normal then my stick body. I went to the wardrobe case
in the hope of find a costume that would counteract the action of
the slimming dress.

I looked at labels and found something that called itself the
"body inflater". I looked like a vinyl body-suit with
extra thick soles under the feet. I decided the give it a go. It
was a tight squeeze getting my legs into the legs of the suit,
but the my upper half presented no such problem. The suit it
seemed had a lot of valves on it the all appeared to be closed
and unlabelled. I wondered where the pump to do the inflation
was. I stepped back over to the costume trunk to look for the
pump, when I felt the soles of the suit squeeze slightly and I
realized that the thick soles were made as pumps and moving my
feet would do the pumping. Now I had to work out which valve
controlled the inflation of which part of the suit. Each valve
had three positions and there were four of them. They were
arranged in a row. I moved the first valve from the closed
position to position one and jogged on the spot for a moment. I
felt a tightening of the suit about my legs. At first I thought
the suit was shrinking then I realized that my legs were
expanding. Instead of being slim and shapely they were becoming
thicker and more muscular. I stopped pumping and felt my legs
through the suit, while I could feel my touch through the vinyl,
my legs felt completely different, like the legs of a female body
builder. I decided to find out what the effect of the second open
position of the valve was. I pumped again and after a while my
legs were getting tired, then I realized that I could not feel
the touch of the vinyl against my legs. I checked my legs and
found that they were skin and bone, all the muscle had wasted
away. Frightened by this development I put the valve back to the
inflate position and pumped until my legs felt normal and closed
the leg valve. I had discovered that the suit could inflate and
deflate parts of the body and that it stretched to fit the
occupant. This meant that I could get out of the suit to check
the results and then get back in to adjust my body. I next had to
find out about what the other three valves did. The second valve
inflated lower torso up to my ribs, the third valve inflated my
chest and the fourth inflated my arms. I spent a while
experimenting and managed to give myself the body of a lady
body-builder, one of those skinny super-model and one of those
huge breasted porn stars who can suffocate a man. I found I was
most comfortable when my body was back to its normal size. I got
out of the suit and went to find another set of clothes.

My next discovery was one with the name "Anne
Boleyn" on the label. I knew I had heard the name before,
but I could not think exactly where. I checked out the dress, it
looked like a costume from a film about merry old England. The
dress did not seem to have a means to undo it, so I decided to
pull it over my head, arms first. After some struggle I found the
openings of the sleeves and started to push my head through the
tight neck ruff. As my eyes began to appear through the ruff a
vanished tingle invaded my head, but the sensation of pushing my
head through the tight collar continued, like head was there but
not there. I finished pulling the dress on and adjusting it so
that it felt comfortable and then turned to the mirror. The wide
skirt did not look unusual, the bodice seemed normal and the
sleeves ended half way down my upper arms. The shock was that my
head was in the crook of my right elbow. There was nothing above
the ruff about my neck. It was as if I had been beheaded and then
given my own head to carry. Thinking the word
"beheaded" brought to mind where I had heard of
"Anne Boleyn", she was one of the executed wives of
king Henry the eighth of England. I reached up the check what had
happened to my neck. My probing fingers felt skin inside the ruff
as if skin had grown over the stump of my neck. I checked under
my head and found the same thing.

I passed my head from my right hand to my left and was
relieved to feel that I could do it. I stood my neck on the desk
and scrutinized my headless body. I then began to worry about how
I was going to get myself back together. My first thought was to
take off the dress then put my head back on. I found that the
ruff would not budge from my neck, If seems that the magic had a
built in safety feature to stop me doing something that in
retrospect would have been stupid. I then tried positioning my
head on my neck and felt the skins over the stumps of my neck
touch but not join. It was most eerie to felt skin to skin
contact inside my neck. I was about to panic when I tried to push
my head against my neck and I felt the ruff rise up my neck an
instantly knew as soon as I got my eyes inside the ruff my neck
would join up. It was quite a struggle because the sleeves
restricted the amount of flexibility I had to press down on my
head. The struggle was worth it, because as my neck joined up a
wave of bodily pleasure surged through my body, for a moment I
went wobbly at the knees. I added the "Anne Boleyn"
dress to the growing pile of discarded magical clothes.

A further rummage in the box of magical clothes revealed a set
of hangers tied together with a label saying "X-ray mirror
illusion - put on all clothes before putting on overcoat." I
was intrigued. I dragged out the clothes and discovered it was
nearly two sets of clothing I took off my panties and started by
putting on the clothes for the illusion and then I put on the
overcoat. The overcoat was huge, it reached the floor, hid my
hands and I could only just see over the upright collar. I looked
in the mirror and was disappointed to see only me in an oversize
overcoat. I thought for a moment and realized that the effect had
to start that way so there had to be a way to activate the
illusion. I felt in the pockets and found a small controller
consisting of a switch and slider with a thin wire leading back
into the pocket. The switch was in the 'off' position and the
slider was fully to the top. I tried the slider and found that
instead of being smooth it moved in steps. I slid the slider back
to the top and switched the switch to the on position. As I
expected nothing happened. I moved the slider one notch, there
was no sensation or indication that anything had happened I
looked down and could see the overcoat and feel the weight and
bulk of it. I looked in the mirror and was surprised to see the
long-sleeved ankle-length dress I had on under the overcoat, but
no overcoat. I moved to check that it really was my reflection.
The reflection acted correctly but it seemed to have shed the
overcoat I was still wearing. I moved the slider to the second
notch and saw the dress vanish to reveal the blouse and skirt I
was wearing under the dress. I slowly slid the slider from notch
two to notch three. I was fascinate as in the mirror the skirt
and blouse became transparent and then vanished completely. My
image stood their in a full-length slip. The next notch vanished
the slip to reveal bra and panties on my reflection. I felt no
odd sensations but the strange situation struck me as peculiar, I
stood in front of the mirror in two layers of underwear, two
layers of clothes and a massive over coat (in fact I was get
quite warm) and my opposite number in the mirror stood there in
her scanties.

The next notch disappeared the last of the image's underwear.
At this point it became obvious to me that my reflections
clothing had become invisible and not vanished, because my
reflection's breasts were not the shape they usually were when I
stood naked in front of a mirror, but the shape of the
constraining but invisible bra supporting them.

The slider was only half way down the track so I gingerly slid
the slider further down the box. When I reached the next notched
the skin covering my reflection dissolved into nothing leaving
her musculature visible. After shock of seeing my muscles
unsheathed by skin, I did some posing and moving discovering the
wonders of how muscles pull sinews and tendons and how they flow
so smoothly over each other. The next notch banished the muscles
from the mirror, leaving my internal organs on view, This made me
feel a bit queasy so I moved the slider another position and to
my relief the only things remaining visible in the mirror were my
bones. I was not in the slightest worried as I pranced about in
front of the mirror admiring the movement of my skeleton. I moved
the slider to the next and last notch with deliberate slowness
and watched as the reflection of my skeleton faded from sight.

I looked carefully at the room reflected in the mirror to look
for evidence that I was there, but until I moved something, in
particular one of the dresses I had dropped on the floor, I could
not tell I was there. I amused myself by carrying things past the
mirror and watching them appear to float in the mirror.

I thought to examine the mirror. As I approached the mirror my
shadow fell across the glass but there was still absolutely no
reflection of me behind the glass. I reached out to touch the
glass expecting it to cool and hard. I tried to touch the glass
surface but my hand went through it as if it were water. The
glass remained flat and reflective but my hand was the other side
of the undamaged surface. I quickly withdrew my hand and checked
it for any harm. As far as I could tell it was perfectly normal.

I approached the mirror again and thrust my hand through the
glass. Apart from a tiny amount of resistance at the surface it
felt putting my hand through an open window. The only unusual
sensation was the feeling of fast flowing air across the part
that was touching/penetrating the interface. I next looked round
the mirror while my hand was extended through it. There was
nothing sticking out the board that backed the mirror. From the
edge of the mirror it looked as though my arm ended at my wrist.
I reached further in and felt for the floor on the other side of
the glass, the floor was there and just the same as floor this
side of the mirror. I leant further trying to touch the reflected
counterpart of the low table behind and slipped and fell through
the mirror.

When I had recovered from the instant of surprise at having
fallen. I checked myself for cuts and bruises, but the only thing
that was bruised was my dignity. I then looked around. The first
thing I noticed was the panel of the mirror suspended in mid air
surrounded by a wall of nothing. I could see the office I had
fallen from through the panel but as time passed it became
obvious (if not quite logical) to me that in the world of the
mirror those bits that can not be seen from the outside of the
mirror just were not there. The reflected office was quite a bit
smaller than the office in the real world and there seemed to be
no way out, except back to the real office. I approached the
panel with the intent of stepping back into the world I had come
from. I found that the panel was solid as I had expected the
mirror to be. I could not get out of the mirror world, I nearly
panicked, but instead broke into sobs of despair.

After half an hour I realized that all I had to do was wait
for Mary and James to come back and rescue me. I sat down on the
table to wait. A couple of minutes later I decided I needed to
write a message to tell them I needed help. I grabbed a piece of
paper and a marker and wrote "HELP" on the paper and
then being unsure of the effect of the mirror on left and right I
wrote it again in mirror-writing.

Then began the lonely wait, I was worried that they would not
be able to get me back. A very nervous hour later I saw Mary
appear in the real office and her image appeared in the mirror
office with me. I could not hear what Mary was muttering, but my
guess is it was to do with the mess I had left in the office as
she began to tidy the dresses. I tried talking to the image, but
it did not seem that either Mary or her image had heard me. My
next step was to try to touch the image, but it did not feel as
though it was there, in fact I put my hand straight through her
shoulder, but it did have an effect. Mary shivered. She was now
alert for something abnormal going on so I went to the mirror
panel and waved the help note to attract her attention. I took
Mary a while to notice me in the mirror and still longer to
realize that I was trapped in the mirror. When she knew I was
trapped she moved the table towards the mirror and tipped it on
its side and then reached in to the mirror from behind table. I
admire the cautious approach she took, even though at the time it
seemed a lot of fuss delaying my rescue. I reached forward for
her hand as it came through the panel that was the back of the
mirror, afraid it would be as insubstantial as her image. I was
greatly relieved to feel the firm real flesh of Mary's hand. She
began to pull. Returning through the interface was a lot harder
and falling through the other way, it was like trying to get out
of quicksand. As my shoulder and head emerged, Mary lost her
footing and fell towards the mirror. If the table had not been
there she would have fallen into the mirror and me with her, we
both would have been trapped. When composure had re-asserted
itself, Mary managed to pull me clear of the mirror.

"Hey Julie what were you doing in there?" she said
pointing at the mirror. I am sure that she would have continued
berating me about careless and untidiness, if she had not noticed
I had no reflection. "Wh.. What the hell is going on?"
she stuttered, "You've got no reflection."

I felt I now had the advantage, so I thought I would try
playing a trick. "Oh yes I have," I said and moved the
slider on the remote controller in the coat pocket to the top but
one position, so that my image was dressed in a dress.

Mary did a double take. She checked the reflection and me,
then she did another double take when she noticed that me and my
image were dressed differently. While she checked my image again
I slipped the slider down a notch. so that the dress disappeared
revealing the skirt and blouse. She finally realized that magic
was being used when I vanished my reflection again. "What is
that you're wearing?" she asked, finally noticing the giant
overcoat.

"It was labeled the X-ray Mirror Illusion. There is a
controller attached to the coat," I explained, bringing out
the controller and demonstrating the effect.

"Well, I can see you took the chance to try some stuff.
I've never seen any of this, what does it do?" she queried. I
was about to open my mouth, when she added, "you can help me
clear this lot up while you tell me."

I described the effects of what I had tried and what it was
like behind the magic mirror to Mary, while we picked up the
discarded clothes and hung them back in the case. After we were
finished and had returned the trunk and the mirror to their
places, Mary said, "I think that we have found out that
doing magic on your own can be dangerous. So we will only try
things if there is someone about to extricate us. Agreed?" I
readily agreed.

We then decided we would go to lunch, so I changed back into
my own clothes.

At lunch I asked her how her arm was, because the plaster was
gone.

"Well," she said, "It was amazing. The doctor
at the hospital took an X-ray and said I should wear the plaster
for another fortnight, but James said he needed me for another
show on Friday. So he grabs me by the arm and drags me off to the
building site where they're building that new wing for the
hospital. He asks to borrow a sledge hammer from one of the
workers there. He then put my plastered arm on a low part built
wall and smashes the plaster with the sledge hammer. It hurt for
about half a second then it felt cool and rested. He then drags
me back to the doctor who is calling security, because he saw
what James did. But James calmly asks him to X-ray it again, which
after some argument and examining my arm he does. It turned out
that my arm was completely mended and I can go back to work. Who
says there are no perks for the magician's assistant. I think it
has about the best health plan going."

I expressed my amazement and agreed that the benefits were
excellent. I asked where James was. I was told he would not be
back until late, because he was collecting some more equipment. I
suggested that we go back to the warehouse and try out some of
the other tricks. Mary agreed.

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To Be Continued ...